


lessons exquisitely crafted.

by chezvous



Series: Lessons Exquisitely Crafted [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezvous/pseuds/chezvous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles sits on the edge of the bathtub as Erik slides the razor against his scalp and lets the first clump of soft curls fall to the floor, a small black crescent against the white porcelain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lessons exquisitely crafted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics from "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng.

The first words Charles deigns to speak to him in a week and it’s a request they both know he will refuse.

How dare he.  _How dare he._

“Erik. Stop it, Erik.”

It’s the calmness in Charles’ voice that arrests him. All the angry words and accusations about giving up and not fighting hard enough that he wants to shoot at him like bullets fall back into his throat, heavy as lead. Erik throws himself into the chair beside the bed, refusing to look at Charles. Instead he focuses on the lamp across the room, imagines being able to hurl it against the wall and watching it shatter into a million pieces with just his willpower alone. He doesn’t know if it will make him feel any better, but at least it would be better than this. 

Anything would be better than this.

 _Ask Raven, ask Hank, ask anyone else, Charles, anyone but me._

“Erik, please.”

Erik keeps staring at the lamp because if he looks at Charles and sees his face, his concern for Erik so palpable and singular, he is certain he will break.

Perhaps he already has.

“You cannot ask that of me, Charles.” He says finally, voice sounds weak even to his own ears, weaker than Charles’ and with none of his calm or conviction.

 _You could ask the world of me and I would give it to you. I would kill for you. I would die for you if I thought it would do any good. But don’t ask me to do this, Charles. Don’t ask me to give up on you._

He wishes he could say these things out loud. More so, he wishes Charles could pluck them directly out of his head so he would know why Erik can’t just be as maddeningly calm about this as he is.

“You know you’re the only one I can ask. I would rather do this now than lose my hair to the chemotherapy later.”

He feels Charles’ hand on his shoulder, the brittle warmth of his fingers seeping through his shirt and burning his skin like a brand. The touch is gentle, asking, and there is no doubt in his voice, just a soft rasp from fatigue. Erik closes his eyes and despite his better resolve, turns to press his lips to Charles’ knuckles, his heartbeat stuttering in his chest. It’s the first skin-to-skin contact they’ve had in days and the extent of his starvation momentarily overwhelms him.

 _It’s just hair_ , is what he tries to tell himself because it’s such a simple request, something he should be able to indulge without a second thought, but it’s not  _just hair_ , not just. It’s also a concession and while Erik is willing to sacrifice a few of his pawns during chess games with Charles in order to further his other pieces, every inch of ground they give the disease is another inch that becomes impossible to reclaim.

Erik has done his research. The chance that Charles’ condition will approve after chemotherapy is a little more than sixty percent. The chance that it will worsen due to the side-effects is significantly higher.

The irony weighs heavier every time it comes to mind. Charles Xavier, expert in just a little bit of everything, holder of multiple doctorates and is known as one of the world’s foremost pioneers in human genetics research. He has one of the best brains in the world—and now it’s slowly killing him.

After a long moment, Erik swallows and stands, walks to the corner of the room and gingerly picks up the discarded straight razor he threw when Charles first asked him for a favor and placed it in his hand. He runs his thumb along the blade ( _ugly, hateful thing_ ), then looks to the bed.

Charles, propped up on mountains of pillows with texts stacked almost as high beside him, smiles gratefully at him with paper-dry lips. His skin is milk-pale and the bruises beneath his eyes are deeper than ever. 

He is still the most beautiful thing Erik has ever seen in his life.

“Thank you, my friend.”

Erik doesn’t want to be thanked. He wants to be far away from here, in a place where he doesn’t have to watch Charles Xavier waste away from the same illness that took his mother so long ago. He doesn’t know if it’s selfishness or cowardice that makes him stay—a bit of both, most like.

He realized a long time ago that what hurts the most isn’t watching someone you love fight and then eventually succumb to sickness; it’s the feeling of helplessness, the realization that no matter how thoroughly you arm yourself, there will always be too many demons you cannot fight.

  
\--

  
Charles spends an unnervingly long time examining himself in the mirror as he unbuttons his silk pajama top, a whole size bigger now than when he had last put it on. Erik watches him from the doorway as he runs a hand carefully across his collarbone, which juts out far starker than it used to. His shoulder-blades too, are more pronounced than usual as he hunches over the sink, looking at how his face has thinned, the new hollowing in his cheeks.

“Are you sure you want to—”

“Yes.” Charles looks up from his own reflection to catch Erik’s eye in the mirror. They are still so blue, impossibly large and so full of something that Erik fears to name. “I’m perfectly sure. Please, I’d rather not—” He swallows and offered him a sincere, if trembling smile. “But I would rather not prolong it, if you don’t mind. I’ve always been inordinately fond of my hair.”

In fact Erik does mind, but this is not about what he wants; it never has been. It’s about Charles, Charles and the six-letter word that no one ever says within earshot and even then, in nothing but fearful, hushed whispers as though if spoken any louder, there will be no other choice than to believe that it’s true.

But god, he’s only thirty years old.

Charles sits on the edge of the bathtub as Erik slides the razor against his scalp and lets the first clump of soft curls fall to the floor, a small black crescent against the white porcelain. They don’t speak at all as Erik solemnly works his way from one side of Charles’ head to the other, from temple to nape in short, efficient strokes. Erik listens to Charles’ breathing, shallow and even, his body still for all of how much it must pain him to sit up like this for so long, but Erik dares not go any faster; he doesn’t trust his fingers not to slip.

When he’s finished, Charles’ hair lays in a dark halo around his feet. In pieces on the floor, there seems to be so much more of it and it fills him with an inexplicable sadness.

Erik flings the razor carelessly toward the sink and listens to it clattering against the porcelain bowl, unable to stop his fingers from shaking any longer. He helps Charles up and allows himself to put most of his weight on Erik now, leaning on him with a tired exhale. It’s a testament to how severely the disease has affected him—a month before, he would have politely but adamantly refused assistance from anyone. Erik gives him his shirt back and Charles lets himself be led to the mirror again where he runs a hand cautiously over his newly bare head. Erik can see the rapidfire synapses of thought by each shift of his eyes, but he does nothing to try and decipher them—they’re not for him to know.

“Well?” asks Charles, almost shyly, turning to Erik once he’s done with his self-assessment. “How do I look?”

 _Like you’re sick,_  Erik wants to say,  _like you’re sick and there’s a possibility you won’t get better_  and  _like you’re sick and we can’t ignore it anymore because you won’t let us_ , but above all, _still you, Charles, still alive—_

“Like you will when you’re sixty,” is what he says instead.

It takes the beat in which Charles’ eyes widen a fraction for Erik to realize what he’s just implied and he quashes the immediate impulse to apologize. 

 _I will not take it back,_  He thinks fiercely,  _Never._

Charles doesn’t balk, just takes a step toward him with a sharp inhale. “Erik,” He says, the sound of his name strangely thick in his normally elegant mouth, “You—” 

The rest of the thought is forgotten as his hands fly to Erik’s shoulders and he pushes them against the wall with a strength that seems to surprise them both. The first press of Charles’ mouth against his own is soft and impossibly chaste, an outpouring of quiet joy and gratefulness and more things than Erik could ever hope or want to describe, a rediscovery. It’s been too long, too much distance bridged between them in too short a time.

There is a question in his eyes when they separate briefly for air and Erik doesn’t even need to consider it before he is reeling Charles in again, cupping his jaw and fitting their mouths together, thumbing his lower lip gently, seeking the entrance that is immediately, so willingly given. Despite what he has forced himself to believe and deny in alternating cycles, he is not the only one to have missed this.

Charles finally breaks from him with a ragged exhale that sounds almost like a laugh. “Erik?”

“Mm?” He leans in to press their foreheads together, reveling in their renewed closeness, the thrum of life beneath Charles’ skin, beating strong and bright.

“Take me to bed?” The tone of the question is innocent but the way Charles is looking up at him, gaze almost coquettish beneath his fan of dark lashes, mouth bitten red and cheeks flushed, suggests something far less so, and suddenly there is nothing different about him at all.

“I thought you’d never ask,” says Erik, and really should not be surprised when he finds he means it.


End file.
